Invictus (2009) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error From $2.99 (SD) on Amazon Video ON DISC Nelson Mandela, in his first term as the South African President, initiates a unique venture to unite the apartheid-torn land: enlist the national rugby team on a mission to win the 1995 Rugby World Cup. Director: a list of 30 titles created 27 Sep 2011 a list of 30 titles created 28 May 2012 a list of 49 titles created 09 Jan 2013 a list of 25 titles created 14 Jan 2014 a list of 33 titles created 01 May 2014 Search for " Invictus " on Amazon.com Connect with IMDb Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below. You must be a registered user to use the IMDb rating plugin.

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Director: Clint Eastwood The story of Michael Oher, a homeless and traumatized boy who became an All American football player and first round NFL draft pick with the help of a caring woman and her family. Director: John Lee Hancock Controversy surrounds high school basketball coach Ken Carter after he benches his entire team for breaking their academic contract with him. Director: Thomas Carter Discovering covert and faulty intelligence causes a U.S. Army officer to go rogue as he hunts for Weapons of Mass Destruction in an unstable region. Director: Paul Greengrass J. Edgar Hoover, powerful head of the F.B.I. for nearly 50 years, looks back on his professional and personal life. Director: Clint Eastwood An unlikely World War II platoon is tasked to rescue art masterpieces from Nazi thieves and return them to their owners. Director: George Clooney The story of Jackie Robinson from his signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization in 1945 to his historic 1947 rookie season when he broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball. Director: Brian Helgeland Edit Storyline The film tells the inspiring true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa's rugby team to help unite their country.

Newly elected President Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match. Written by alfiehitchie His people needed a leader. He gave them a champion. See more » Genres: Rated PG-13 for brief strong language | See all certifications » Parents Guide: 11 December 2009 (USA) See more » Also Known As: The Human Factor See more » Filming Locations: $8,611,147 (USA) (11 December 2009) Gross: Did You Know? Trivia Jonah Lomu is portrayed by Zak Feaunati , who was once a player of the Bath Rugby team and is (2009) head of Rugby at Bishop Vesey's Grammar school in Sutton Coldfield. See more » Goofs In the scene where Nelson Mandela is dancing, several of the violin players are holding their bows several inches above their violins.

See more » Quotes [first lines] High School Boy : [seeing passing motorcade] Who is it, sir? High School Coach : It's the terrorist Mandela, they let him out. Remember this day boys, this is the day our country went to the dogs. See more » Crazy Credits During the first part of the end credits, pictures are shown of the real life characters that were portrayed in the movie. Those images are then followed by a scene of South African kids playing rugby. See more » Connections User Reviews As a South African, I can tell you the entertaining, inspiring and enjoyable "Invictus" exceeded all my expectations. 13 December 2009 | by JeffersonCody (South Africa) – See all my reviews As a South African who saw this film on Friday morning, I can tell you you the entertaining, inspiring and enjoyable "Invictus" exceeded all my expectations. It really is a true story of epic proportions yet it's told with an intimate feel, and it is at least 98% accurate to the events of the time. Clint gets all the big details and so many of the little details right, but he never goes over the top.

He directs with minimum fuss and achieves maximum effect, just letting the powerful story unfold without getting in its way. I watched the 1995 Rugby World Cup and saw Madiba come out in the Springbok jersey. It was a wondrous sight. And when Joel Stransky slotted that drop kick over in the dying minutes and the Boks won, I wept and cheered along with everyone else. After the match millions of South African - of all races - celebrated. It was an amazing time. It was the birth of the "Rainbow Nation". Nelson Mandela is the greatest and most beloved of all South Africans. The man is a living legend, but so human and real. When he was President he brought hope to all South Africans, white and black. We, in my country, will never stop loving this incredible man. Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman did South Africa and our beloved Madiba proud. Francois Pienaar is also an amazing South African, an intelligent, big-hearted rugby played who always led by example, and Matt Damon's performance as him was superb.

I was glued to the screen for every second of the film's running time (I didn't even move from my seat until the final credit rolled and the house lights came on), and I was moved to tears on several occasions. The final scene was especially touching. Freeman's performance was magical and I can see him getting as Oscar nomination. If you think his Mandela is too cool to be true, think again. Mandela really is this cool. A brave and intelligent man whose courage and strength of character should serve as an example to people all over the world. After being unjustly imprisoned for nearly 30 years by a cruel and repressive regime, he emerged to run a country and teach its people the meaning of forgiveness and reconciliation. I thoroughly recommend the authentically detailed, historically accurate "Invictus" to film lovers, Eastwood fans, Nelson Mandela fans and sports fans everywhere in the world. South Africans would be crazy to miss this excellent film, but it deserves to be a hit all over the globe. Let's hope it is. Viva Clint Eastwood, viva Morgan Freeman, viva Madiba. PS. I'm a huge fan of Clint Eastwood as both an actor and a director.

Of the films Eastwood has directed, my favorites, in no particular order, are "Unforgiven", "Million Dollar Baby", "Gran Torino", "The Outlaw Josey Wales", "Letters From Iwo Jima", "The Bridges of Madison County","Bird" and "Invictus". Yes, it's really that good. "Invictus" is another winner from Clint. He just seems to get better with age. What a creative roll he is currently on. PPS. "Invictus" is one of the best sporting movies I have ever seen. But it's also about more than sport. 207 of 229 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes From Morgan Freeman to Idris Elba, Who Played Mandela Best? : NPR From Morgan Freeman to Idris Elba, Who Played Mandela Best? Embed Embed From Morgan Freeman to Idris Elba, Who Played Mandela Best? From Morgan Freeman to Idris Elba, Who Played Mandela Best? Embed Embed Email November 25, 201311:36 AM ET Many films have been made about Nelson Mandela.

Danny Glover, Morgan Freeman, Dennis Haysbert, and now Idris Elba have all tried to step into the icon's shoes. Host Michel Martin speaks to Sean Jacobs, founder of the blog Africa Is A Country, about which actor played him best. MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Well, British actor Idris Elba is being praised by critics for his performance as Mandela in "Long Walk to Freedom," but as we mentioned earlier, he's not the first actor to try. There was Morgan Freeman in "Invictus," the 2009 film about South Africa's rugby team. Dennis Haysbert, Danny Glover and Sidney Poitier have also taken turns at playing Mandela. We were curious about the differences that each actor brought to the role so we decided to call Sean Jacobs. He's a professor at The New School in New York and founder of the blog "Africa is a Country," which is, of course, meant ironically - correct, professor? SEAN JACOBS: Yes, indeed. MARTIN: Just to be sure. So let's start by asking what you think is the most important thing for an actor who takes on the role of Nelson Mandela?

JACOBS: I think that there's a difference between imitation and embodying Mandela. So if an actor looks like Mandela but can't embody the - sort of the figure, you know, the way he is as a politician, as a person - that is more important than whether he looks like Mandela. So, for example, Morgan Freeman doesn't look like Mandela at all, but to most people, almost in a sense, Mandela became Morgan Freeman. Morgan Freeman acted like a statesman in the film. Even if you have issues with the actual narrative of the film or the story, but as an actor, Morgan Freeman embodied him. MARTIN: Well, let's play a short clip from that film. Here it is. This is a scene from his first day in office as president of South Africa. Here it is. (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "INVICTUS") MORGAN FREEMAN: (As Nelson Mandela) If you are picking up because you fear that your language or the color of your skin or who you worked for before disqualifies you from working here, I am here to tell you, have no such fear. The past is the past. We look to the future now.

We need your help. MARTIN: You know what's funny to me? Is that a lot of people really appreciated Morgan Freeman's role in this film, but his actual accent, in my mind, is not perfect. JACOBS: No. MARTIN: If that makes sense to you. Yeah. And so what is it about it you think people are reacting to? JACOBS: So in that clip, you can hear that kind of like hesitant style that Mandela spoke. Among the other hand, Morgan Freeman, I think, I suppose he just decided look, I'm not going to sound like a South African. There are times in that film he just becomes Morgan Freeman and he speaks with an American accent. And people were fine with that. I think it's when you have actors trying to play a South African and they have almost sort of fake Nigerian accent - that's when it becomes a problem I think. MARTIN: Here's Sidney Poitier.

He played opposite Michael Caine in "Mandela and de Klerk." That was a 1997 made-for-television movie about the relationship between Mandela and the former South African president who was in power when he was - when Mandela was released. Let's hear a clip of the two of them. (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MANDELA AND DE KLERK") SIDNEY POITIER: (As Nelson Mandela) For more than 300 years you have been dominated by blacks. You've simply never acknowledged that. MICHAEL CAINE: (As F.W. de Klerk) You and I are both going to have to be willing to make some compromises if we want to set the ground rules. We need to begin negotiations. POITIER: (As Nelson Mandela) Mr. President, I don't mean to flatter you when I say that I sense an integrity here that has not distinguished many of your predecessors. So I agree. MARTIN: So once again, the accent not quite perfect. But speaking of integrity, Sidney Poitier, one of the things he's known for is a certain integrity that he has himself.

Do you think that he brought that to the role? JACOBS: Well, with Sidney Poitier - Mandela actually met Poitier during the making of this film and he remarked that Sidney Poitier was a freedom fighter and a great actor. And I think he sees some of these kind of politics in Sidney Poitier. You know, someone who has to make himself acceptable in a situation where people don't want him. He has to appeal to an audience that didn't like him, you know, when Sidney Poitier came out in the late '50s - the early '60s. And in this film, Mandela also gets to be angry. It's a very short period in the time before he came out of prison. But you do get a sense of a, you know, the full Mandela. MARTIN: So drumroll, what's your response to Idris Elba as Mandela? JACOBS: I mean, from what I've seen, I think he gets - he tries to get or he gets the accent. Secondly, I think as a young Mandela - the charisma, the... MARTIN: The physicality. The sense of physical strength.

JACOBS: The physicality of it - he gets that right. MARTIN: One of the interesting things, though, that the film captures, which I think you've spoken about yourself is that he initially was not, kind of, the focus of the movement. He was never - it was never Mandela and everybody else. But at a certain point, he did become - he did kind of rise above and become the focus of international attention. JACOBS: Yeah I think the ANC understood by the late 1970s the importance of sort of personality driven politics. That you have to focus in on one figure to simplify for people who, you know, couldn't make sense of either the ANC's ideological politics because they would always debate whether the ANC was Communists or whether they were liberals. So to simplify it, the focus became on this one man. He was mysterious. No one had seen him since 1964. Internationally, you had people who'd never cared about South Africa, you know, starting to latch onto it.

And he became part of, sort of, a whole (unintelligible) of nationalist black leaders globally - like Malcolm X., Martin Luther King - and I remember when I first arrived in the United States in mid-'90s there was a popular T-shirt that said something like - Martin, Malcolm, Mandela and me it's a black thing you wouldn't understand. MARTIN: And before we let you go, you know I have to ask because you're South African yourself, does it sting at all - do you have any - or do other South Africans have any feelings about the fact that so many of the prominent actors who have taken on this role are not themselves South African - including Idris Elba. JACOBS: I mean, there are disadvantages and advantages to that. I think it's disingenuous when the producer of the "Long Walk to Freedom" said that he did not pick a South African actor because they're too short. He should of been honest and said, look, it's about box office, I'm trying to make money off this film so I'm going to hire the actor that can best get people - you know, people into seats.

Few people know that the very first portrayal of Mandela on film was by a South African. It was a South African actor called Simon Sabela who played Mandela in 1966. Out of the six most prominent bio, you know, films on Mandela, five of them were written by South Africans. It always ends up that an American actor plays him. But I don't have a problem with that as long as they can embody - they're all acting as - you know, it's not Mandela, it's an actor playing Mandela. And if they can play it well, then that's fine with me. MARTIN: Sean Jacobs is a professor at The New School in New York. He's founder of the blog "Africa is a Country." We just want to remind you that it isn't. And he was kind enough to join us from our NPR bureau in New York. Professor Jacobs, thank you so much for speaking with us. JACOBS: Thank you for having me. MARTIN: And that's our program for today. And just as there have been a number of films about Nelson Mandela, many songs have been inspired by him. So we thought we'd go out on this one.

That's "Asimbonanga" from Johnny Clegg and Savuka. I'm Michel Martin and you've been listening to TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Let's talk more tomorrow. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ASIMBONANAGA") Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc. , an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Invictus Movie Trailer 2009 HD [OFFICIAL] - YouTube Invictus Movie Trailer 2009 HD [OFFICIAL] Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Uploaded on Nov 30, 2009 Invictus is an upcoming 2009 feature film based on Nelson Mandela's life during the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa. Directed by Clint Eastwood, the film stars Morgan Freeman as the South African President Mandela, and Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar, the South African team captain. The story is based on the John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation. The film is due for release on December 11, 2009. Category Morgan Freeman's long walk to Nelson Mandela | Film | The Guardian Morgan Freeman Morgan Freeman's long walk to Nelson Mandela Portraying Nelson Mandela has defeated many actors, but not Morgan Freeman. The star of Invictus tells Bill Keller about shadowing – and embodying – the South African leader Officially sanctioned … Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in Invictus.

Photograph: Keith Bernstein Bill Keller Thursday 31 December 2009 16.45 EST First published on Thursday 31 December 2009 16.45 EST Share on Messenger Close Morgan Freeman has been cast as God – twice – so he evidently has no trouble projecting moral authority. The challenge of portraying Nelson Mandela , then, was not the size of the halo, but knowing the performance would be measured against the real, familiar Mandela, and his myth. "If we can say any part of acting is hard, then playing someone who is living and everybody knows would be the hardest," Freeman says. The role has defeated actors as varied as Danny Glover (in the 1987 TV film Mandela), Sidney Poitier (Mandela and de Klerk, 1997, also for TV) and Dennis Haysbert (Goodbye Bafana, 2007), in vehicles that were reverential and mostly forgettable. But as someone who studied Mandela over the course of three years while he replaced an apartheid regime with a genuine democracy, I found Freeman's performance in Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood, uncanny – less an impersonation than an incarnation.

He gets the rumble and halting rhythm of Mandela's speech, the erect posture and stiff gait. There is a striking physical resemblance, enhanced by the fact that Freeman, 72, is just a few years younger than Mandela was in the period the film covers. More important, Freeman conveys the manipulative charm, the serene confidence, the force of purpose, the hint of mischief and the lonely regret that made Mandela one of the most fascinating political figures of his time. This is not, as the film's screenwriter, Anthony Peckham, put it, "Rich Little doing Mandela in Vegas". The story of Invictus, drawn from John Carlin's book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation begins with the newly inaugurated president of post-apartheid South Africa looking for ways to enlist his fearful white minority – with its talent, wealth, resentment and capacity for insurrection – in the business of governing a democracy. His inspired stratagem is to embrace the national rugby team, the darlings of the formerly ruling Afrikaners and, for most nonwhite South Africans, a symbol of brutal and humiliating repression.

The new president sets the team's captain (François Pienaar, played by Matt Damon) the improbable goal of winning the World Cup; the tournament is to be held in South Africa in a year, and the Springboks are given little chance. Mandela sets himself the considerably more improbable goal of uniting the country behind the team. So loathed were the Springboks that those few blacks who showed up for matches rooted loudly for the other side. So the rugby campaign was one of Mandela's boldest strokes of statecraft, no less impressive for the fact that the euphoria he achieved could barely begin to extinguish three centuries of racial antagonism. Freeman's occupational association with South Africa began with a role in the 1992 film The Power of One, a pious tale of a white boy coming to enlightenment in apartheid South Africa. Soon thereafter Freeman made his directing debut with a more tough-minded film, Bopha! – the story of a conflicted black South African cop, played by Danny Glover.

(Lori McCreary, who was a producer on that film and is a producer of Invictus, said she tried to lure Freeman for the lead part in Bopha!, but was told he "doesn't do accents".) According to Freeman, his mission to portray Mandela on the screen began with a public invitation from the subject himself. At a press conference to promote the publication of his 1994 memoir, Long Walk to Freedom, someone asked Mandela who should play him in the movie. "And he said he wanted me," says Freeman. "So it became. That was the whole sanction, right there." The South African film producer Anant Singh, who bought the movie rights to Long Walk, arranged for Mandela and Freeman to meet. "I told him that if I was going to play him, I was going to have to have access to him," Freeman says. "That I would have to hold his hand and watch him up close and personal." As president, Mandela could be surprisingly approachable – he once allowed me, the New York Times correspondent in South Africa at the time, to shadow him during a day of his presidency, something I can scarcely imagine an American president allowing.

But since stepping down in 1999, and especially since his memory began to fail, he has become more reclusive, protected by a staff that worries he might embarrass himself. But he obliged Freeman. "Whenever we've been in proximity in one city or another, I have had access to him," Freeman says. Their encounters ranged from tea at Mandela's home in Johannesburg to a charity fund-raiser in Monaco. But through multiple screenplays Mandela's sprawling memoir proved too unwieldy for a film, and Freeman abandoned the project: "There's just too much to whittle down to movie size." Then, in 2006, Carlin, who covered South Africa for the Independent in the 1990s, was in Mississippi to write an article on poverty in the American South for El País, the Spanish daily that now employs him. He ended up in the Clarksdale living room of Freeman's business partner. When the host went to the kitchen for a bottle of wine, Carlin recalls, he turned to Freeman. "This is your lucky day," he said. "I have a movie for you." "Oh, really," Freeman replied.

"What's it about?" "It's based on a book I am writing about an event that distills the essence of Mandela's genius, and the essence of the South African miracle." "Oh," Freeman replied, "you mean the rugby game?" Carlin's proposal for his book had already been circulating in Hollywood, and it had caught Freeman's eye. Freeman sought Mandela's blessing, bought the rights and persuaded Eastwood to direct. (Their two previous collaborations, Unforgiven and Million Dollar Baby, both won best picture Oscars.) They hired Peckham, a South African emigre, to write the script. Freeman insists that if the portrayal transcends impersonation, that is largely Peckham's doing. As an actor, "you're looking for the physical: how he stands, how he walks, how he talks," Freeman says. "Nuances he has in terms of tics or movements. Things that sort of define him. The inner life has to come off the page. Whatever he's thinking, I don't know.

You have a script, and you stick to that script, and the script is going to inform you of everything." While Freeman brought to the project a decade of observation, Peckham, who left South Africa in 1981, had never – and still has not – met Mandela. "He was a non-person for my entire growing up," says Peckham. "You weren't even supposed to have pictures of him. Everything I learned about him I learned from a distance, after I came here." For the feel of Mandela's everyday speech, the screenwriter mined written documents, especially transcripts of a 1998 court case in which the South African president was subjected to a hostile grilling by lawyers for the national rugby hierarchy. (It tells you something about the incompleteness of the redemptive turn depicted in Invictus that, three years after the famous rugby match, Mandela appointed a commission to study whether the South African Rugby Union, the national governing body for the game, was thwarting the advancement of black players.) Peckham's main difficulty in writing a script, he found, was to do justice to such a familiar and beloved figure without tipping into idolatry.

"It was extremely difficult, because in the period I write about he was in many respects at his most saintly – leading the country the way he did," Peckham says. The danger of hagiography "was something we all knew was an issue and that I struggled with every day while I was writing it. With the additional complication that we didn't want to be offensive and disrespectful either. It's easy enough to kind of show someone's feet of clay if you're prepared to be brutal about it, but it's not so easy when you want to be respectful without hero-worshipping." The notion they settled on to humanise the hero was that while Mandela was making a nation, he was neglecting his own family. It is certainly true that Mandela's marriage to the cause contributed to his two divorces and his estrangement from some of his children. In the movie there is a scene of Mandela, who could always summon the words to move a crowd, failing to connect with his resentful grown daughter Zinzi. "Knowing what I know of Madiba personally," Freeman said, using Mandela's clan name, "his real concern is not for what he did, but more for what he didn't do.

He had family obligations that he couldn't live up to, one, because he was in prison, and they just wouldn't allow it, and he had so many other obligations. The father of the nation is usually less than the father of his family." South Africans listening to Freeman's rendering may agree that he "doesn't do accents." (He says "Spring-BAHK" where Mandela would say "Spring-BOHK.") But Mandela's distinctive voice is less about accent than cadence, and Freeman gets that precisely right. Carlin, who covered Mandela in his political prime and spent many hours with him for the rugby book, said Freeman "channels Mandela beautifully". Most important, Carlin says, Freeman, abetted by the screenwriter, "impressively conveys the giant solitude of Mandela". Though an admirer of Freeman, Carlin has seen Mandela played wrong often enough that he braced himself for disappointment. After attending a screening in Paris late last year, he sent an ecstatic email message: "They didn't screw it up!" he wrote. "WHAT a relief!" For me the realisation that Freeman had nailed it came as the film ended. Alongside the closing credits came still photos of the actual rugby match, and the actual Mandela.

And for a second I wondered, "Who is that impostor?" Invictus is released on 5 February The veteran actor on The Dark Knight Rises, how the right is out to destroy Barack Obama at any cost – and why he hates the phrase African American Published: 12 Jul 2012 In film, the role of the former ANC activist and president of South Africa has traditionally been approached with great reverence, writes Peter Bradshaw Published: 6 Dec 2013 Barack Obama is to play host to Idris Elba and Nelson Mandela's daughters for a Washington screening of Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom Published: 5 Nov 2013 Conservative shareholder in media conglomerate demands there be no repeat of Freeman's anti-Tea Party remarks during publicity drive Published: 16 May 2012 First look of Morgan Freeman playing Nelson Mandela in new film Invictus | Daily Mail Online comments Hollywood legend Morgan Freeman is fulfilling his long-nurtured ambition to make a film about South Africa's first black president Nelson Mandela. Now that dream is pulling closer to reality as never-before-seen footage emerged of Freeman playing Mandela on the set of upcoming Clint Eastwood-directed drama Invictus.

The film is based on the iconic image of Mandela handing Springboks' white captain Francois Pienaar - played by Matt Damon - the 1995 World Cup trophy. Rare glimpse: Morgan Freeman plays Nelson Mandela, while Matt Damon is rugby captain Francois Pienaar on the set of Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood In that moment, Mandela took a significant step forward to unifying a post-apartheid South Africa. Believing he could bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallied South Africa's underdog rugby team as they made an unlikely run to the World Cup championship match. A political genius, Mandela used sporting glory to help build a new identity for a racially and economically divided nation. After 14 years, and numerous books, the extraordinary and multi-faceted story has finally captivated Hollywood.

Iconic moment: Freeman plays the part of Mandela right up to the hat, while Damon is decked out in his rugby garb United in glory: Nelson Mandela hands Springbok captain Francois Pienaar the 1995 World Cup trophy after South Africa beat New Zealand 15-12 The latest Eastwood project is an adaptation of John Carlin’s book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela And The Game That Made A Nation. Damon prepared for his role by training with a local rugby side. New stills from the film show Freeman and Damon capturing the moment when black and white South Africa were united. When Mandela was arrested in 1962, he was founder and commander-in-chief of the military wing of the African National Congress, Umkhonto we Sizwe, regarded by many white South Africans as a terrorist organisation determined to end their privileged way of life. Upcoming: Clint Eastwood gives directions to his actors and production team on the set of Invictus, which is set for release in December During his 27 years in prison, Mandela was the embodiment of white South Afica's worst fears.

Two years before the 1995 World Cup, the country was heading towards civil war - the white Afrikaners under the banner of far right Volksfront, vowed to stop Mandela becoming president. But they failed, and when Mandela won power he quickly set about trying to reconcile whites and blacks. A year into Mandela's presidency, South Africa was selected as the host country for the World Cup, and the new leader saw an opportunity not to be missed. The Springboks had been banned from international competition because of the country's apartheid practices. But Mandela said, why not use it now as a carrot? Why not use the Springbok team to unite the most divided nation on earth around a common goal? The majority of blacks viewed the team as a symbol of exclusion, but they rooted along with white countrymen as the Springboks won in overtime against New Zealand to capture the Cup. The name Invictus refers to a poem by William Earnest Henley that was often recited by Mandela. Invictus, which has already been tipped for an Academy Award, is set for release in December.

Mandela's other legacy: The real-life 'Invictus' story | Public Radio International Public Radio International Nelson Mandela congratulates South Africa's rugby team captain François Pienaar after his team's victory over New Zealand in the final of the Rugby World Cup in Johannesburg on June 24, 1995. Credit: Jean-Pierre Muller JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – Growing up under apartheid in a rural Afrikaans community, young Francois Pienaar would hear talk about the “bad man.” The name of this man, Nelson Mandela, came up often in conversations among adults, and was usually twinned with the word “terrorist” – creating a powerful impression on children listening nearby. “What you believe is what you hear around the barbecue fires,” Pienaar, now 46, recalled during an October youth conference in Johannesburg. “That if this person comes out of jail there will be serious issues in South Africa.” Pienaar famously led South Africa’s national rugby team, the Springboks, to victory at the World Cup in 1995, a year after Mandela became the country’s first democratically elected president.

Rugby, beloved by the Afrikaners — the descendants of Dutch settlers in South Africa — was considered by many blacks to be a symbol of racist white minority rule. For years South African sports teams had been excluded from international competitions due to boycotts. But Mandela championed the Springboks, seeing it as a unifying moment for the new “Rainbow Nation.” This inspirational story of reconciliation was recounted in the 2009 film “Invictus,” in which Pienaar is played by Matt Damon and Mandela by Morgan Freeman. These days, Pienaar tears up when he talks about his relationship with Mandela, and the former president’s legacy in South Africa. Any whispers that this country will fall into chaos after Mandela’s death are simply “unfounded,” he said. “I think South Africans have in the last number of years come to grips with the fact that Madiba will pass,” Pienaar told GlobalPost, referring to Mandela by his Xhosa clan name as a term of respect. “What I say to people is that I hope that his passing is a celebration and a tremendous reflection,” he said.

“If it wasn’t for Nelson Mandela, we would not have been set on this path.” More from GlobalPost: Death of Nelson Mandela (FULL COVERAGE) For Pienaar, everything changed when in 1994 he received an unexpected call from Mandela’s personal secretary, inviting him for tea with the president at the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Pienaar recalls hearing Mandela’s distinctive, booming voice, saying “Ah, Francois, is he there?” and then the office doors opening. Mandela’s imposing height was a surprise on their first meeting, as was the sense of warmth he exuded. “I felt safe,” Pienaar said. “I felt like I was in the presence of a very, very wise person.” Mandela saw the power of sports on South African hearts and minds, and with Pienaar on side, cleverly used it to build bridges in a divided nation. But two decades later some South Africans feel that sports haven’t been transformed, with players and fans still largely divided along racial lines — mainly, rugby being a white sport, and soccer a black one. “There’s more than needs to be done at grassroots levels in certain sectors, most definitely,” Pienaar said. “That I don’t argue with.

But we’re also not celebrating some of the good stuff that has been done in other sectors and sporting codes.” “In this country sports will always be under a magnifying glass. And I understand that. But one needs to understand what does success look like, and then go and drill down to what has been done,” he said. “It needs to start at grassroots, and at elite level it needs to be on merit. That’s what I would look at if I was the engineer,” he added. Pienaar said he is also concerned about the current void in strong leadership in South Africa. While there are young people with a lot of potential, they are held back by a poor education system, he said. Mandela and Pienaar last saw each other four years ago, a reunion the former rugby player described as “very emotional, very special.” “I decided then that I would say my goodbye,” he said. “But I’ve kept in contact and heard about his health and so forth.” Pienaar said he was deeply touched that Mandela kept in contact long after the rugby World Cup. For example, Mandela called Pienaar and his wife to congratulate them on the birth of their first child, and to give the boy a Xhosa name.

“Having had the opportunities to experience things that very few have — I’ve very blessed. Very, very blessed,” Pienaar said. “We have a relationship that I don’t gush about and haven’t for the last number years because it’s so special. Incredible, deep respect.” Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy While you are here... The work we do has never been more important — whether it’s because of “news” that might not be news at all or healing the deep divides in our country. Now more than ever, we need conversation, perspective and diverse voices. Will you support PRI in our efforts to create a more informed empathetic world? Invictus: better on Nelson Mandela than rugby | Film | The Guardian Film blog Invictus: better on Nelson Mandela than rugby Clint Eastwood's retelling of how Nelson Mandela embraced the Springboks lacks that sporting thrill and passion for the game – and misses a fine metaphor for the racial struggle Entertainment grade: C– History grade: B+ The South African national rugby union team has been known as the Springboks since the early 20th century.

The 1995 World Cup was the first in which South Africa was readmitted to international competition after an apartheid-era boycott. Politics Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in the film Invictus, the poem that sustained Mandela while he was in prison. Photograph: Keith Bernstein Invictus begins with the release from prison and election to the presidency of Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman), who appears in some meticulously recreated documentary-style footage. The film is right to suggest that rugby was an intensely political game in South Africa. "Rugby was 'the opium of the Boer', said Makhenkesi Arnold Stofile , an African National Congress activist who later served as sports minister. "We always defined sport as apartheid in tracksuits." Symbolism In the film, Mandela is a lone voice arguing for the ANC to back rugby as a way of offering an olive branch to white Afrikaners. In real life, Stofile and Mandela's fellow Robben Island inmate Steve Tshwete were key advocates. It is true that Mandela argued for the retention of the Springbok as the team's emblem against a lot of ANC opposition, though the film's vote scene doesn't wholly recreate how that happened.

In real life, according to John Carlin's book Playing the Enemy on which this film is based, it was a matter of Mandela convincing Stofile. "I would like us to talk about this animal," Mandela told Stofile. "I don't follow you," Stofile said. "You know," said Mandela, "this sports animal." Mandela convinced Stofile that the team's emblem was a matter of national security, and the sports animal stayed. Race Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar in Invictus. Photograph: Keith Bernstein The film recreates Mandela's meeting with captain François Pienaar (Matt Damon) for tea at the Union Buildings, on 17 June 1994, pretty much perfectly from Carlin's book. It is also right that the team's only non-white player, Chester Williams (played by real-life Springbok McNeil Hendricks ) was chosen by the marketing team as the "face" of the Springboks. However, it's on dodgier ground with the suggestion that black children in the townships idolised him, and that's what made the team popular.

As Carlin points out, Williams was "not entirely convincing" to black South Africans, owing to his defined status as "coloured", meaning mixed race. In fact, when the Springboks visited Zwide township outside Port Elizabeth, "it was Mark Andrews who attracted all the attention, because he was so huge, and because he also happened to speak Xhosa". Popularity 'I am master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul' ... Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela in a still from the film Invictus (2009). Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar Mandela had enormous difficulty selling rugby to many of his own supporters. During the World Cup competition, he was booed by an ANC crowd in KwaZulu when he donned a Springboks cap. "They booed me down when I said, 'These boys are ours now, let us embrace them!'" Mandela remembered later. "Oh, it was very difficult." The film correctly shows that when he walked out on to the pitch before the World Cup final in the green Springbok jersey, the mostly white Afrikaner audience was won over, and spontaneously began to cheer "Nelson! Nelson!

Nelson!" Sport In real life, the final versus the All Blacks was thrilling. It's a pity they've made it seem so desperately dull in this movie. There is no sense of narrative: it's just random shots of players crashing heavily about, disconnected from any sense of what is actually going on in the game, and – disastrously – filmed in slow-motion with solemn music. "So what does this mean?" a helpful audience-proxy character asks at one point, though the explanation is little help to anyone who is already lost. The final scrum feels like it goes on for decades. A viewer might conclude that director Clint Eastwood has only a vague familiarity with the sport he is trying to depict, and even less enthusiasm for it. Soon, he's cutting back to mawkish shots of white policemen hugging black street-kids, and, if you're still awake, you get the message that world peace has broken out and racism is fixed now. Phew. Verdict Invictus is a passable if ponderous rendering of the historical story, but it couldn't care less about rugby.

In film, the role of the former ANC activist and president of South Africa has traditionally been approached with great reverence, writes Peter Bradshaw Published: 6 Dec 2013 Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman mistaken for Nelson Mandela in Indian billboard gaffe | Daily Mail Online An Indian billboard mourning Nelson Mandela's death has been put up in India, but a photo of actor Morgan Freeman has been mistakenly used. The memorial to Mandela was placed in the city of Coimbatore by the side of a road. Morgan Freeman played Mandela in 2009 film Invictus which is probably how the mistake arose. Scroll down for video The face of Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman was used on a giant billboard instead of Nelson Mandela's in the tribute gaffe 'We should be proud that we were part of an era when they lived,' read the condolence message on the board in Tamil. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share Cloth merchant Chandrashekhar, who paid for the board in a private capacity as a mark of respect to the former South African leader, said it was a mistake by the designer.

'We will replace it with the correct picture of Mandela,' the merchant, who uses one name, told AFP by telephone from Chennai, adding that he did not know how the gaffe occurred. On-screen portrayal: Morgan Freeman played Mandela in 2009 movie Invictus Enlarge Paying tribute: Morgan also posted a touching tribute message on his Facebook page Earlier this month Morgan Freeman, paid tribute to Mandela, describing him as 'a saint to many, a hero to all who treasure liberty, freedom and the dignity of humankind'. The 76-year-old actor – who some mistakenly posted a picture of next to tweets paying tribute to Mandela - added: 'As we remember his triumphs, let us, in his memory, not just reflect on how far we've come, but on how far we have to go. 'Madiba may no longer be with us, but his journey continues on with me and with all of us.' Proceedings following the death of Mandela has brought around several gaffes. Thamsanqa Jantjie, 34, a South African sign language interpreter accused of making up his own signs The most high profile has been the man who performed fake sign language during a memorial service.

Thamsanqa Jantjie, 34, stood just a few feet from from President Obama and other leaders who spoke during the ceremony that was broadcast around the world. His actions were questioned when it was claimed he was signing words like 'prawns' and 'rocking horse'. Jantjie's explanation was that he had suffered a schizophrenic episode in which he had 'seen angels and heard voices'. He has now been admitted to a psychiatric hospital after his wife Siziwe revealed her husband was supposed to attend a mental health check-up but postponed the appointment so he could be at the ceremony.

Question: Who played Nelson Mandela in the 2009 film lnvictus?
Answer: Morgan Freeman